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Nineteenth-Century English Literature and the City

Research Project

Project/Area Number 16520157
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Section一般
Research Field ヨーロッパ語系文学
Research InstitutionHiroshima University

Principal Investigator

KEIJI Kanmeda  Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor (60137247)

Project Period (FY) 2004 – 2006
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2006)
Budget Amount *help
¥2,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000)
Keywordsthe nineteenth century / England / literature / the city
Research Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study nineteenth century English literature in its relation to the city. The research has been pursued with its focus on the analysis of literary texts, which I regard as being generated at the point where urban geography, the human body and psychology and systems, both political and cultural, merge. Initially I tried to trace the process by which the English middle class formed their identity by separating themselves from "the lower" as the Other. However, a different approach of applying a philosophical thinking about power turned out to be necessary, in order to clarify the ideological significance of the "urban improvement", which begun in London in the 1830s and 1840s. The main objects of analysis on the realm of administration have been the Metropolitan Police, sanitary reform and the housing for the poor. The analysis required a consideration of the development in Michel Foucault's thinking from Discipline and Punish to The History of Sexuality … More , Book 1, the two of his major books. It is found out that the mechanism of organizing the local sites in which micro-power is exercised into the network of macro-power of the government is analyzed by Foucault in the unbroken process of thinking from the first book to the second.
It is also found out that the problematics of "individualizing distribution" considered by Foucault in Discipline and Punish is taken up and refined in his thesis of "population" in The History of Sexuality, Book 1, though without any fundamental change of the concept in the process of writing the two books. The product of this consideration of his thought in the two books is effectively applicable to the analysis of the modern society, which is organized by bio-power, and in which this power circulates among the human beings who have become "individuals". Literature, the novel among others, also can be understood in another light when it is analyzed in the social and cultural context of the modern city, in which protagonists are individuals, and in which they discipline themselves by assimilating bio-power as their own. Less

Report

(4 results)
  • 2006 Annual Research Report   Final Research Report Summary
  • 2005 Annual Research Report
  • 2004 Annual Research Report
  • Research Products

    (2 results)

All 2007

All Book (2 results)

  • [Book] 「リトル・ドリット」(『ディケンズ鑑賞大事典』)2007

    • Author(s)
      要田 圭治
    • Publisher
      南雲堂
    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
    • Related Report
      2006 Final Research Report Summary
  • [Book] 「リトル・ドリット」(『ディケンズ鑑賞大事典』)2007

    • Author(s)
      要田圭治
    • Publisher
      南雲堂(所収)
    • Related Report
      2006 Annual Research Report

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Published: 2004-04-01   Modified: 2016-04-21  

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